The Body in the Boot: The first 'Mac' Maguire mystery

by Patrick C Walsh

  ‘No but I’m not even sure it’s anything really.’

  ‘As we said even the smallest detail might be massively important.’

  ‘Okay. I sometimes work in the shop with Dad, you know Saturday nights and other times when it gets busy. When Matyas lived over the shop he often came in to get a kebab. We used to have a small TV in there and I remember once he got very angry about a news story. I was curious so I went over and had a look. The news story was about the trouble in Ukraine. I often wondered why a Hungarian would get so angry at that but I supposed it was possible he had family there or something like that.’

  ‘Is there anything else you can remember?’ Mac asked.

  ‘No sorry that’s it. Not much is it?’ Nikos said shrugging his shoulders. ‘I wish I could help more I really do,’ he said with emotion.

  ‘You have helped, this could be crucial information. Thanks Nicky.’

  The young man left with the ghost of a smile of his face.

  Mac did indeed think that Nicky’s information might be important. It might narrow the search down a bit if they knew they were looking from someone from Ukraine who had lived in Hungary rather than a Hungarian national.

  The door opened and a short stocky man in his forties came in. He held out his hand to Mac and he shook his hand vigorously.

  ‘My name is Stavros, I’m Stelly’s cousin.’

  ‘Full name?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Stavros Andreou,’ he replied.

  ‘I take it that your father is Spiros’ brother?’

  ‘Yes, he’s the oldest of the five brothers.’

  ‘Spiros has four brothers?’

  ‘Yes but only he and my father came to England. The other three stayed in Cyprus and looked after the family farm.’

  ‘So what can you tell me about Matyas?’

  ‘Not much, if I’m honest, I only bumped into him once or twice in my uncle’s shop but one thing I do know is that he really loved BMWs.’

  Mac was intrigued.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Well one of our businesses is the newsagents just down the road from here and I remembered that we used to order some magazines for him when he was living in my uncle’s flat. They were just about BMWs and they weren’t cheap either. He was a good customer back then as he used to order all the football magazines and papers too.’

  ‘Did he ever order anything else?’ Mac asked.

  Stavros shook his head.

  ‘Just football and BMWs.’

  Mac thanked him for his time.

  He stopped before opening the door and turned to Mac.

  ‘Who’d have thought?’ he concluded mournfully.

  Mac was pleased to see a familiar face when Dimitrios walked in.

  ‘Mr. Maguire,’ Dimitrios said as he offered his hand, ‘I was hoping we might have met again in more pleasant circumstances but…’

  He held his hands palms out in an expression of helplessness.

  ‘Have you remembered anything else about Matyas since we last spoke?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking of nothing else. I’m afraid I’ve not much to add, just something Stelly said to me a while back. I’m not even sure if it’s really relevant.’

  ‘Go on,’ Mac prompted.

  ‘My brother said at the time that he thought it was strange reading for a taxi driver. Matyas hadn’t told him he had a university degree.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘Matyas had been waiting in the office for a job and he was reading some print offs from a folder. Stelly had seen the folder before and he was curious as to what Matyas was so interested in. When he got called for a job and left the folder behind Stelios took a look. It was mostly lists of pharmaceutical companies, pages of them, plus some research he’d printed off on a few.’

  ‘Anything special about the ones he’d researched?’

  ‘Stelly said he only glanced at the top sheet and that featured an article about a company that was setting up a branch in Hungary.’

  ‘When did he tell you about this?’

  ‘Not long after Matyas got the job in the university. I told Stelly I’d seen him there and what he was doing. He thought that probably explained his interest in the pharmaceutical companies. Matyas was researching future employers perhaps.’

  ‘Thanks Dimitrios, that’s really interesting.’

  ‘I wish I had more for you but…,’ he shrugged his shoulders, his face crumpling slightly as he tried to hold back the tears.

  ‘How are the family holding up, your Dad?’

  ‘As you can see we’re all here, supporting each other as best we can, but Dad…I really fear for him, he loves us all so much. Are you going to see him?’

  ‘Yes, we have to I’m afraid.’

  ‘I know but please go easy on him.’

  ‘We will, don’t worry. How about you?’

  ‘I’ll be okay, as okay as anyone can be in such a situation. I just thank God I’ve got Max’s shoulder to cry on, I don’t know what I’d do without him.’

  He got up and made his way towards the door.

  Then he turned and said, ‘You’ll do your best for our Stelios, won’t you Mr. Maguire?’

  ‘I promise I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Thank you Mr. Maguire,’ he said and left.

  Mac sat back in the seat and thought how the ripples of an event can affect so many people. For this family it was more of a tsunami than a ripple though.

  Another knock on the door.

  ‘Come in.’

  Mac was surprised when a black man with dreadlocks down past his shoulders walked in. He sat down and looked sadly at Mac.

  ‘As you may have guessed I’m not one of the family,’ he said in a soft Caribbean accent.

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Jacob Murphy, people call me Jake.’

  ‘And your connection with Stelios?’

  ‘Stelly was my partner in the taxi firm. We’ve both worked so hard over the past ten years or so, him being the front man and me in the back office. We were really starting to get somewhere and then this.’

  Mac was interested.

  ‘Tell me about yourself and how you and Stelly got together.’

  ‘We go back quite a while. I’d been trained as an accountant back in Jamaica but found work hard to get. These made sure of that,’ he said pointing to his dreadlocks.

  ‘You’re a Rastafarian?’

  ‘Yes but unfortunately not everyone in Jamaica at the time was a Bob Marley fan. So I came to England and guess what? I couldn’t get work here either due to this and this,’ Jake said pointing to his black skin and the dreadlocks again.

  ‘So, as I didn’t want to go home with my tail between my legs, I worked where I could, labouring in factories mostly, before finally becoming a taxi driver. That’s where I met Stelly. He was a really happy-go-lucky guy, what they call a people person these days. I wasn’t so good at that but I was good at figures and I’d taken some management courses too. Together we had this dream of owning our own taxi firm and between us we made it happen. We made a good team, Stelly being the front man and me running the back room, a bloody good team.’

  Jake’s eye’s began to fill with tears as he added, ‘We were good friends too, the best.’

  Mac gave him a moment before asking, ‘What can you tell us about Matyas?’

  Jake’s face hardened at the name.

  ‘Matyas was a very private person. I don’t think any of us at the firm could say we really knew him. The only time he mentioned anything personal to me was one day he came into the office and asked about sending money abroad, he said it was urgent. I asked him if the person he was sending the money to had a bank account but he wasn’t sure, so I recommended a local agency I’d used before. I told him how much they charged and he went away quite happy as far as I could tell.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘About a month after he started with us.’

  Mac wrote down the name and address of the
agency.

  ‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’

  ‘Sorry no, as I said Matyas was a private person.’

  ‘Thanks Jake, if you think of anything else…’

  Jake looked levelly at Mac.

  ‘I am ashamed to say that I have prayed about this to Jah.’

  ‘Why are you ashamed about a prayer?’

  ‘My prayer was that I might get to meet Matyas before you do.’

  Jake stood up and left Mac to himself.

  Mac sat there in silence chewing over what he’d heard until he was disturbed by Dan poking his head around the door.

  ‘Finished? Shall we go?’ Dan asked.

  Mac was more than happy to go. It looked like a few more people had joined the mourners in the living room. They said their goodbyes to Mrs. Andreou and Dan gave her a card in case anyone else remembered something.

  Outside Mac gratefully breathed in the cold air, trying to wash a familiar sadness away.

  ‘Bit oppressive, wasn’t it?’ Dan commented as he unlocked the car.

  Mac could only nod his head.

  They sat in the car and exchanged notes. Mac went first.

  ‘Okay so what I learned was that Matyas is possibly Ukrainian, that he loved BMWs, that he was actively researching pharmaceutical companies for some reason, possibly employment, and that he once needed to send money abroad. I’ve got the address of the agency he might have used too. You?’

  ‘Only that he loved football and supported MTK, which we knew anyway, but George did say something interesting. There was a family celebration, one of the younger brother’s birthdays and he and Stelios were chatting. It was just after Matyas had been sacked from the taxi company and George was interested in how he’d taken it. Stelios told him what Matyas had said but he reckoned it was just talk. George confirmed what Sofia had said about Stelios being relieved when he heard that Matyas had gone back to Hungary.’

  ‘Are we going to the kebab shop now?’

  Dan gave Mac a lugubrious look. ‘Yes but I’m not looking forward to it.’

  ‘No, neither am I.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  A short while later Mac once again found himself outside the locked door of the kebab shop and, as before, he could see Spiros working away inside. He was vigorously scrubbing down the work surfaces. He looked up when Dan knocked the door, thought for a moment, then went over and unlocked the door.

  Dan opened the door and he and Mac walked into the shop. Spiros had already gone back to his scrubbing.

  ‘Mr. Andreou, can we talk for a moment?’ Dan asked.

  Spiros stopped working for a second, gave Dan a hostile glare, and then carried on working.

  ‘Please Mr. Andreou, we need to talk.’

  Spiros stopped and glared at Dan again.

  ‘And where will talking get us? Will it bring my Stelios back? I think not.’

  Dan looked at Mac for help.

  ‘Mr. Andreou, this Matyas hasn’t only killed Stelios, he’s killed others too,’ Mac said. ‘There are other families out there who have experienced the sorrow you are feeling now and there will be others in the future too if we don’t catch your son’s murderer. We need to talk.’

  Spiros considered this for what seemed minutes. Eventually he nodded his head.

  Dan indicated that Mac should continue the interview.

  ‘It’s Mr. Maguire, isn’t it?’ Spiros asked.

  Mac nodded.

  ‘My Dimitrios told me about you, he looked you up on the internet and he said that you might be the one who could catch Matyas. I didn’t care about that, catching Matyas won’t ease my pain. But you are right, if I can save someone else from this, what do you want to know?’

  ‘You might know more about Matyas than anyone as he lived upstairs. Just tell us anything you know about him, even the smallest detail could be crucial.’

  Spiros thought for a moment.

  ‘Well, you already know about his love of football. He loved my kebabs too, always took hot chilli sauce with them. How I wish I’d put rat poison in the chilli sauce back then.’

  He stopped for a moment to gather his thoughts.

  ‘I’m not sure I can add anything else. I worked here and he lived upstairs, I didn’t see that much of him really.’

  ‘Please think again Mr. Andreou,’ Mac pleaded. ‘Anything could be important, so matter how small.’

  Spiros shook his head.

  ‘I’m sorry, really but I can’t. All I can think is that Stelios being dead is my fault, if I hadn’t suggested that he take on Matyas he might be alive now.’

  He gave the policemen a despairing look.

  Dan glanced at Mac.

  ‘Okay I’ll leave a card with you, if you think of anything else contact me straight away.’

  As they turned and headed for the door Spiros said, ‘There was a letter, it was strange it had the right address but the wrong name.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Dan said excitedly.

  ‘The postie put it in the shop’s letter box by mistake. We’re 123A and the flat is 123B. It had the right address and post code but the name was wrong.’

  ‘Can you remember what the name was?’

  Mac found he was crossing his fingers while Spiros thought.

  ‘Yes I remember thinking that it the first name wasn’t that much different to the Greek. The name was Alexander but spelt differently, Oleksandr I think it was. The surname was easy to remember as it was the same as the footballer’s, Shevchenko. Yes that was the name Oleksandr Shevchenko.’

  ‘Thank you Mr. Andreou, you have no idea of how important that name might be.’

  Before they’d left the shop Spiros had returned back to his work. Mac glanced back and hoped he’d never have to feel such pain himself.

  ‘You think that might be his real name?’ Dan said excitedly as they walked towards the car.

  ‘Could be, it can certainly be shortened to Sandor what do you think?’

  Dan eyes widened.

  ‘Yes, bloody hell you could be right.’

  Mr. Molnar tipped his hat to the two policemen as he passed them. Spiros opened the door and the two men hugged each other fiercely. Spiros started crying, his body shaking with the force of his sobs.

  Suddenly wanting to be somewhere else Mac looked at his watch, it was just gone two.

  ‘How about we check out this agency? Let’s see if they recognise the name.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Dan replied.

  The address turned out to be a newsagent’s shop that was no more than five minutes away by car. The shop was crammed with papers, magazines, sweets, packets and cans of food. There was a small freezer and a fridge containing butter and milk. You could also send a parcel, dry clean your clothes and pay for your electricity and gas as well as wire money abroad.

  A young slim Asian girl stood behind the counter. When Dan asked for the owner she went behind a curtain and returned with an old man with a grey beard and an orange turban.

  ‘I am Mr. Kapoor, how can I help the police?’

  Dan showed him his warrant card but Mr. Kapoor waved it away.

  ‘How far back do you keep records on your money transfers?’

  Mr. Kapoor smiled.

  ‘You had better ask my daughter Hardit here about that, I am no good with computers.’

  The young girl said, ‘I’m sorry but I can’t give you any information.’

  ‘Why is that?’ Dan asked.

  ‘We can only input data at this end. We don’t have access to customer’s information.’

  ‘Oh I see,’ Dan said. ‘Then who might have this information?’

  ‘The head office in London, there’s someone there who I speak to from time to time, when we have problems with the system. Do you want me to call him?’

  ‘That would be very helpful.’

  While Hardit was ringing the number Mac’s eyes ran around the shop and fixated themselves upon some sandwiches in a cold cabinet in the far corner. He suddenl
y realised he was ravenously hungry.

  ‘Joe this is Hardit from Luton. No, I haven’t got a problem but I have the police with me, they’d like to ask you a question.’

  She passed the phone over to Dan.

  ‘Joe, this is DI Dan Carter here from Bedfordshire police. It’s very important that I quickly get some information about a money order that was sent from this office….. No not recently it would have been well over two years ago…..name of Shevchenko…yes please check the name both as sender and recipient. Thanks Joe, can you please sent any information to this email address.’

  Dan read out Martin’s email address. He handed the phone back to Hardit.

  ‘Should have the information within the hour he says.’

  He turned to see that Mac wasn’t there, he was looking intently at something in the far corner of the shop.

  ‘What is it Mac?’ Dan asked as he came nearer.

  ‘Sandwiches,’ Mac replied.

  ‘Bloody good idea, I’m starving.’

  They selected two each and a cold soft drink from another chiller cabinet. Dan insisted on paying and soon after thanking Mr. Kapoor and his daughter they were seated in the car wolfing down their lunch.

  After they’d finished Dan commented, ‘You forget you have a stomach sometimes in this job.’

  ‘Too true,’ Mac concurred, feeling a sense of comfort that only an empty belly made full can bring.

  Dan glanced at his watch.

  ‘It’s not even three yet but I fancy going back to the station. I can’t wait to see what if the money order company come up with something.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Mac said.

  He was really wondering if he could slip off to the medical room to spend a little time flat on his back. He was suddenly feeling tired now he’d eaten and the pain was beginning to get worse. Lying down was the only thing that might help that didn’t involve heavyweight drugs and he wanted to keep his mind as clear as possible.

  ‘To be honest I don’t want to go home but I could do with a lie down for an hour.’

  Dan glanced over at Mac.

  ‘It’s my fault keeping you up all night and then I thought you were pushing it a bit being in so early and all. No worries we’ve got a bed in the medical room back at the station. I’ll show you where it is when we get back.’